World War II veterans share their stories

Six decades ago, they wouldn't have thought twice to lay down their lives for their country.

"When you're that age, you would have died for your country," the Rev. Thomas Eisenman said. "That was your duty. You'd have done anything for your country."

A late-war Navy enlistment, Eisenman never got the chance. Japan surrendered while he was stationed at Pearl Harbor, awaiting orders to sail into the South Pacific. Though he was proud of the victory, he remembered having mixed emotions.

"You sort of celebrated it," Eisenman said, "but then as a young kid, I remember thinking, ‘I didn't get in the action. I really want to get in the action.'"

Sitting to his right, 88-year-old Edward Kohler quietly disagreed.

"Be thankful you didn't," Kohler said. "I have nightmares yet."

Kohler and Eisenman, 81, joined Clyde Mefferd, 89, and Howard Dunifon, 81, late last week to share their experiences and a little about being a veteran.

Three years after enlisting in the Army in 1940, Kohler and the rest of the 37th Infantry Division were fighting through the jungles of New Georgia.

Not long after that, he volunteered for the Rangers, joining the battalion known as Merrill's Marauders.

"I figured it couldn't be any worse than where I was at," Kohler said of his time fighting for New Georgia. "I was in mud up to my neck. Japs up about 25 yards in front of us. We were in the foxholes for 73 days."

Dunifon, like Eisenman, was among the last to enter the service before the end of the war.

After graduating high school, Dunifon went to the University of Cincinnati to study engineering. That only lasted about three months, however, when he was drafted after turning 18.

He was sent west and assigned to the 13th Signal Corps, though the war ended before he left American soil.

Mefferd spent nearly two years away from the States after enlisting in 1942. The only one of the four stationed in the European Theater, Mefferd was in England for 23 months with the 8th Army Air Corps as a parts clerk for B-17 bombers.

Eisenman joined the Navy because some friends of his wanted to go in together.

While he waited to sign up, some officers at the recruitment center remarked about the kid with fat cheeks, he said.

"They didn't know it, but I had the mumps," he said with a laugh. "I had the mumps and they still took me in."

Meeting the enemy

Mefferd spent all his time in an allied country, but he saw the power and ingenuity of Germany's war machine coming across the English Channel

Along with hearing Germany's bombing raids over London, while stationed near Bedford, Mefferd had a close encounter with one of Hitler's V-1 buzz bombs, the unmanned rocket-propelled bombs that earned their name from their distinctive sound.

Mefferd heard the rumble bearing down on his camp.

"You couldn't figure out if it was on top of you or where it was going to go," Mefferd said. "Just sounded like a truck coming down the road."

The bomb eventually hit about a mile from Mefferd.

Kohler wasn't so lucky.

While in Burma, Japanese troops were closing in on the Rangers. A nearby buddy, William Henderson, Niagara, N.Y., was shot through both knees. Despite having a 104-degree fever from malaria, Kohler tossed Henderson over his shoulder and carried him five miles to safety.

"That was our motto, leave no man behind," Kohler said.

Along the way, Kohler dodged the bullets, but couldn't dodge a bit of shrapnel.

"It just cut a hole in my skin. Went in and out," Kohler said. "I didn't even know it until about three days later."

Henderson ultimately survived the war, dying about three years ago.

Fear wasn't limited to the front lines, however. No matter how far from the enemy, there was always an air of warning.

"When we were going to Hawaii, and the war was still going on, we had an airplane go over our ship," Eisenman said. "And everybody on the ship, they dropped down you know, until they found out whose airplane it was."

Remembering the sacrifice

After the war, they returned home and went to work.

"We just come home and disappeared," Dunifon said.

Kohler built locomotives. Mefferd and Dunifon worked in the refinery and chemical plant. Eisenman has spent the last 58 years preaching the Lord's word.

As they gathered last week, they scattered across the table photographs of themselves in uniform and photographs from a recent Honor Flight trip Kohler, Mefferd and Dunifon took to see the World War II memorial in Washington.

When they returned to Springfield from the trip, they were greeted by about 100 people and "Welcome home veterans" banners.

"Boy, they were real glad to see you," Dunifon said. "They shook your hand, thanked you for the service you'd done."

Now more than ever, that kind of appreciation is cherished.

"We never had that" coming home from the war, Eisenman said. "It brought a little tear to my eye."

As the years have passed, each said it has became easier for them to speak about their part in the fight for freedom so long ago.

For a school project, Mefferd's granddaughter interviewed him and made a scrapbook that chronicled his wartime experiences.

"I was telling her, since she had that project," Mefferd said. "She said she really enjoyed it, just talking to me."